blackswaneuroparedux:Last time, you said Bilbo’s front door was blue, and you said Thorin had a gold
blackswaneuroparedux:Last time, you said Bilbo’s front door was blue, and you said Thorin had a golden tassel on his hood, but you’ve just said that Bilbo’s front door was green, and the tassel on Thorin’s hood was silver.- Christopher Tolkien being read The Hobbit by his father, JRR Tolkien Christopher Tolkien more than once interrupted his father as he read chapters of The Hobbit to the Tolkien children in JRR Tolkien’s study. Their father would often let out an exasperated and resigned exclamation - but quickly strode across the room to make a note in his draft papers. As the youngest son of beloved fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien was raised hearing fantastical tales of Bilbo Baggins and Middle-earth. When his father died in 1973, the younger Tolkien became his literary executor. Over the next 47 years, Christopher sorted through 70 boxes of Tolkien’s unpublished work; ultimately, he compiled and edited 24 editions of poems, histories, translations and stories centered on his father’s expansive fantasy world. Christopher’s first editing project was a tome of myths and legends from the world of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Building on a 12-volume compilation of drafts and rewrites left by his father, he published The Silmarillion in 1977.The third son of J.R.R. and Edith Tolkien, Christopher was born in Leeds, England, on November 21, 1924. He spent his childhood in Oxford, where his father was a professor, and joined the Royal Air Force during World War II. Stationed in South Africa, he regularly corresponded with his father, who was then writing The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tolkien often sent draft chapters to his son.Christopher made small interventions when his father sought advice, he told the Guardian newspaper in 2009.Referencing Samwise Gamgee, a Hobbit who accompanies Frodo Baggins on his journey, Christopher said, “[My father] wrote to me in May 1944 that he would change the name Gamgee to Goodchild ‘if I thought you would let me,’ ‘since Hobbits of that class have very Saxon names as a rule.’”The younger Tolkien replied “that I wouldn’t at all like to see Sam Gamgee changed to Sam Goodchild; and Sam Gamgee remained.”After the war, Christopher became a lecturer in Old and Middle English, as well as Old Icelandic, at Oxford University. He drew many of the original maps that accompanied his father’s first editions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy in the 1950s, in addition to revised maps in the 1970s editions.Later in life, Christopher moved to France with his second wife, Baillie Tolkien. He became a French citizen and lived at the foothills of the Alps. In 2016, he received the Bodley Medal in recognition of his contributions to culture and literature.Christopher Tolkien died in Provence, France in January 2020. He was 95. -- source link